Tuesday, 14 January 2014

True Colors Set Review - Runner Cards

The Corp cards got to use the all-new Evil Pinky Scale, and for the Runners I unveil the Groovy Scale...

1 Groovy - Fun? Thematic? Cool? Maybe. Good? No.

2 Groovies - Rarely played but will have its moments

3 Groovies - Solid card - you'll definitely see this around

4 Groovies - A great card - a faction staple

5 Groovies - Shagadelic! You'll see this used across all factions

Keyhole

Lets start with the biggie – Keyhole was
spoiled a while ago and I've never previously liked this card. However enough people have said it's great,
including some of the people whose card evaluations I pay close attention to,
that I've gone back to basics and taken a fresh look.

Ignoring the cost and 2MU for now, what does
Keyhole actually do for you?

Keyhole shows you 3 cards at random from the
Corp's deck, and roughly half the time that will include an Agenda.
You'll be able to trash the Agenda then run on Archives to collect it.
Given unfettered access to R&D you should be able to score an Agenda
every turn by running R&D two or three times the running the Archives.
Because you shuffle R&D after your access you don't get to ensure
that the Corp won't draw an Agenda the way you can with an R&D Interface
'lock' but if you're seeing 6 or 9 cards per turn and the Corp is only drawing
1 or 2 cards you can certainly expect to see Agendas more rapidly. This
is actually quite different to playing Medium, the current Anarch R&D dig
of choice, where it will typically take you longer to score Agendas but you can
be pretty certain that the Corp can't draw any in the meantime.

Compared to Medium I think
Keyhole is better when you're winning (ahead on Agenda Points, in a dominant
position and able to access Central servers repeatedly for little cost) while
Medium is better in other situations. Medium only needs one run per turn
to really deny the Corp the chance to draw an Agenda. When you're behind
on Agenda points Keyhole leaves the door open for the Corp to score their last Agenda
before your accesses can find 7AP, which Medium doesn't do, and it's worth
noting that the first time you try and steal an Agenda with Keyhole you'll
likely find Jackson Howard ready to rip it away from you, buying the Corp more
time to win.

That said, Keyhole is powerful and I had
definitely dismissed it too readily, although I think many players are too
quick to see its strengths when you're ahead and overlooking the times when you
would rather have Medium. The key for Keyhole (pun intended) is fitting
it into a rig which can afford to access R&D and Archives so easily, and
that's where the 2 MU becomes a bit of a problem. It could be that deck
requires Grimoire to fund that additional MU while supporting the Anarch rig of
Corroder/Yog.0/Mimic/Datasucker, maybe with Djinn to help out. Reina Roja
has already sparked huge interest in Anarch decks and I'm sure many people will
try to use Keyhole as their win condition.

Keyhole can certainly win
games but compared to Medium I think it requires the runner to be in a stronger
position before it can be effectively used and it's not yet clear in my mind
that it's not 'win more' compared to Medium. I think that in situations
where Keyhole will win the game for you Medium would probably also win the game,
although it would take longer to do it. Back the other way I'm not so
sure that Keyhole will always win the game for you in situations where Medium
would have locked the Corp out.

BTW, a nice little difference between Keyhole
and Medium is that you're not accessing multiple cards, and this significantly
de-risks running against Jinteki decks full of Shock! and Snare! If Jinteki takes off then Keyhole definitely gains an edge over Medium & R&D Interface.

Activist Support

Being able to give the Corp a Bad
Publicity is a great ability but giving the Corp the chance to trash your
Activist before he can even Support you isn’t so great. You’ll need to put the Corp between a rock
and a hard place before this actually works out for you so don’t get too
excited about what this claims to do.

Lawyer Up

Lawyer Up brings a mini Quality Time
into Criminal, allowing the Event-heavy decks to keep their hands topped
up. You have to keep in mind that this
is a Double event, though, so unless you’re gaining value from the clearance of
tags this card is less exciting than you might think – versus simply clicking
to draw two cards you’re +1 card (which is just cycling the Lawyer Up) but -2 credits, which isn’t exactly a stellar
trade. The only real value comes from wanting
to clear tags and that’s something that, currently Criminal decks are happy to
ignore doing. Right now I think this is
a lot less thrilling than it looks at first glance precisely because it’s a
Double and Criminals are usually happy to play Tag Me, but if you want tags gone and you want cards in hand Lawyer Up provides both at once as some solid work compression.

Leverage

Even without the restriction of running
HQ I wouldn’t be too interested in this card – it’s much easier to play
Plascrete to avoid Meat damage and simply play well to avoid Net damage. That I have to run somewhere I don’t want to
have to run in order to generate an effect I don’t want to generate is just a
nail in the coffin. Leverage would be a
strong contender for the worst card in the set if that hadn’t been wrapped up
by Starlight Crusade Funding a long time ago.

Garrote

On initial reactions this seems to have
divided people but I am definitely on the side of the fence that Garrote is a
great addition to the Icebreakers. Up to
now no single Icebreaker has offered an efficient breaking formula and it has
been much harder to break Sentries than any other type of Ice. When I made my analysis of the ice andIcebreakers from the Top 32 decks at Worlds I highlighted that there wasn’t a really good Sentry killer, and even explored what two programs you could most effectively
combine (Mimic & Knight or Mimic & Femme being best).

Because of that analysis I feel like
you’re frequently going to devote 2MU to Sentry breaking anyway – either Mimic/Datasucker
or Mimic/Femme or similar – and that Garrote takes up 2MU alone isn’t such a
bad bargain because it turns out that Garrote is SIGNIFICANTLY more efficient
than any other Sentry breaker (see the table below). Yes, Garrote costs 7. Yes, it takes up 2 MU. But you were probably spending 2MU and lots
of credits anyway to install a combination of cards to break Sentries
with. Garrote brings it all in one card,
and one card you can search for with Special Order and which doesn’t cost
Influence.

I don’t know if Criminals are going to
switch from Mimic/Datasucker to Garrote because Datasucker synergises so well
with Desperado, but I do see that their Anarch rig is coming under attack
(Power Shutdown for Datasuckers, Str 4+ Code Gates like RSVP and Inazuma) and
Garrote offers the option to jump out into a Garrote/Gordian rig instead
(similar tothe versions from Worlds that were based on Magnum Opus). It’s definitely a possibility I will playtest,
and I also think Garrote is tempting for Shapers to port over into their Test
Run/Scavenge decks.

If your evaluation stops at the cost
and MU of Garrote then I think you’re not appreciating the investment required
to break Sentries with the current selection of Breakers. Garrote is good, not quite Mimic/Datasucker
good but good nonetheless.

LLDS Processor

Big woop. No advantage you get from this can possibly
be worth the cost of drawing/installing it.
I heard somebody say you would use it with Faerie/Clone Chip decks… presumably
because the one thing you need with Faeries is some way to dodge the enormous cost
of giving Faerie +1 Strength. </sarcasm>

Sharpshooter

The program-saving version of Deus X,
Sharpshooter is limited use but essential for the decks running Self Modifying
Code as your get-out when you run into an unexpected Archer. I think you can expect to see a couple of
copies played quite frequently in Shaper decks and this quite effectively
neuters the swing towards Grim/Rototurrets in Corp decks. A neat little card that achieves quite a lot
simply by existing.

Capstone

So if you built your deck badly to
include lots of duplicates of cards you don’t want duplicates of, then put lots
of draw effects in so that you keep drawing the cards you don’t want rather
than filtering past them with search effects, this card is good. Alternatively you could punch yourself in the
face repeatedly if you’re feeling particularly masochistic.

Starlight Crusade Funding

I’m sure there is going to be a wacky
theme deck of Double events that uses this.
I’m equally sure it will be terrible.

The Runners definitely get the raw side of the deal in True Colors, as has been true all the way through Spin Cycle so far, but each faction gets something that I think is good. The standout card is Keyhole, which follows hot on the heels of Reina Roja and Knight to keep players interested in what Anarchs can do, but I think both Garrote and Sharpshooter will be valued additions to the war against Sentries and program destruction.

About The Author

David Sutcliffe has over 20 years experience of competitive TCG, LCGs and Miniatures gaming since 2000 he has written for a number of outlets, including official strategy analysis and event coverage for Magic: The Gathering and the World of Warcraft TCG from World and Continental Championships, Pro Tours, Grand Prix and Darkmoon Faires.

In December 2015 he ended his long love affair with shuffling cardboard and switched to rolling dice instead. David has moved over to the X-Wing Miniatures Game to begin his new blog about that game: Stay On The Leader.